I'd suspect that this is a relic of test logs generated by running portscanners on a LAN to build up a record set for the database. They say the data is not very reliable yet.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't
on
Golden Rice
·
· Score: 2
Geez. Point out the obvious difficulties with trying to not feed people Frankenfoods and get ad hominem attacks. And no, I don't agree that extreme poverty is suddenly going to be great now that my daily bowl of rice has more nutrients.
Since the decision for whom to vote is truly binary (unlike most of life's decisions, for which we are usually offered only dichotomies, but closer inspection will prove that there are more than two choices)... I mean, voting is a matter of either you are voting for someone or you aren't. So why continue to blame the people who voted, rather than the mechanical issues of the voting system in Florida? IMHO Florida should be disqualified from voting in this election or future elections until they can be certified to have an election process that is not a circus. How's that for an unpopular argument?
While I don't doubt that a choice number of highly drool-worthy prototypes have been put together at great expense to assist in the wooing of venture capital and boosting the geek factor of the principals of this organization, I have to wonder when and if they plan to get even a remotely affordable and relatively available model of any Linux based PDA on the street, where it counts.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't
on
Golden Rice
·
· Score: 2
My biggest concern is that with all the beta-carotene in this rice and with the quantities of rice I eat, that I will turn orange.
I'm with you, for the most part, humans have been genetically altering livestock and crops for millenia, it's called selective breeding. And while we may not have had an in-depth understanding of genetics (and still probably don't), certainly any agricultural scientist (or farmer) paid close attention to these issues. The biggest problem we have now is that the kinds of changes are so completely artificial and the rate with which we can make those changes are so accelerated that the potential for serious unintended side effects may vastly outweigh the benefits.
In this case, instead of feeding these people the rice, perhaps they could extract the beta-carotene and administer it in the form of vitamin pills-- something we're all comfortable with at this point. That way the genetic oddities of the whole food are not in play. Of course, that's not efficient if the food is safe, so who am I to say. Wouldn't it be easier to just grow carrots? I mean, rice? How bland can you get?
This, honestly, is a load of shit. A hosting service (which is a subset of ISPs) certainly can set limits to the sort of content they will host, especially if they are up-front about what is allowed and what is not. There is nothing illegal or even improper about a service setting up terms such to conform with any particular notion, especially if their own domain name is an intricate part of the URL. For instance, why should www.christianhosting.net, not have a right to prevent posting of pro-Satanic material on their servers? Or why wouldn't most "unlimited" bandwidth hosts or free hosts have a right to limit certain types of content, especially mp3s and pornography? These are very likely to interfere with their ability to manage bandwidth, thus providing that service.
Personally, I think the ease with which one can register a fairly unique domain name and find a cheap (i.e. $10/month) host for content makes this a buyer's market. And certainly there are hosts out there who will provide limited bandwidth hosting for any type of content you'd like to post which is not outright illegal. I know because I use one. If you do not shop the TOS prior to making a deal with a hosting service, this is an obvious case of "caveat emptor"-- since we've all been hearing about this issue since the dawn of the home page.
For the record, I distinctly recall the use of the word "elite" (or any 3l337 spelling of same) IN the year 1986, so I'd assume that those using it were actually born at that time. Of course, at this point "cracking" primarily meant removing the copy protection from games.
I was going to moderate on this story, but there's no moderation tag for "-1, Obviously Stupid", so I'll have to respond. Last time I checked, farming was one of the few remaining commodity markets in existence, which practically gaurantees that farmers are at the mercy of the few large corporations who buy the bulk of their products, and with the ongoing consolidations in the agriculturally-derived manufacturing industries (look at RJR Nabisco, look at Pillsbury being merged with General Mills), expect this to get worse.
It simple economics, the fewer buyers there are, and as long as sellers are mostly dependent on those buyers, the buyers will be able to set their price about as low as they want to. Where I live in Minnesota, this is a continuous issue-- where families that have farmed for generations are now having to find other means to make money since farming is becoming increasingly unprofitable at the smaller, family-sized farm level. In fact, there is a large movement, especially among the devotees of organic produce, to support locally-owned, family-style, non-corporate farms in a very direct way (through co-ops and such).
In other words, this analogy is flawed, I hear about farmers being ripped off a lot more than I hear about rock stars being ripped off. I also hear about farmers consistently losing ground through no fault of their own. Given the ease of capitalizing a CD pressing and the incredible number of outlets for same, I can't say I have the same sympathy for musicians too dumb not to whore themselves to RIAA member corps.
I, too, have noticed very few sites that don't work with either Linux or Mac OS. Most of the sites I can think of that don't or won't or might not work are those put out by television networks, who apparently assume that everything on the web should be as much like an interactive commercial as possible. Frankly, most of it is crap that does more to obscure any actual content than it makes the site enjoyable. A few well-placed jpeg's would have the same impact, and when properly coded won't impair me from using a text- browser when I want to ensure a low bandwidth experience.
I'm not sure I see where and how the article explains that MS itself will do any sort of certification. All it says is that they are building an option to prevent execution of unsigned code. The biggest problem I can see is MS requiring that certificates (which are different from certification) be purchased from them. Even if the certificates come from a 3rd party like Verisign, this is still additional expense for shareware developers. And if it relies on patented or non-Free algorithms to be applied, then it starts to take Free software out of the picture. However, simply having the option to not execute unsigned binaries is hardly a terrible thing. Security paranoid sysadmins should like this, since it means that all binaries come from a "trusted" source. How easily the ability to trojan a binary that appears trusted remains to be seen. But this option doesn't really sound like much more than the current (hihgly manual) option in Linux to download signed source code, use checksums, then compile, so that the odds of a trojaned binary are pretty much reduced to an impossibility.
Or hey, if you are talking on a cell phone and pointing at your computer, then all it takes is one Philadelphia police officer's word to have you convicted, right?
I sure as hell hope they could do this under Linux, and I suspect that they can. I recall distinctly having to turn the automatic hardware change detection feature in Red Hat to "off" so that it would stop carping when I removed the keyboard and tried to reboot (I was testing system and network regeneration in case of power outage).
Finally, the only problem with Linux distributions that make it difficult for newbies is not all the underlying Unixosity. It's the fact that most distros offer you choices like KDE or GNOME. It's the fact that they've never encountered an OS that was originally intended for multiple users connecting via terminals to a single large machine-- and the distro does nothing to cover up this situation by using single user mode as the default. It's the fact that none of these applications are likely the ones their friends have or they use at work. It's not a Linux problem per se, it's the fact that no one has made the difficult choice to dumb down the distributions.
Also, replying to the moderation on your own post is lame. Really lame. Especially even more lame since your original post was written in such a way as to provoke argument, i.e. the clinical definition of "flamebait".
Re:Options for Peer to Peer working
on
Scour is Dead
·
· Score: 2
I think it is typical of human nature to be willing to share that which is in excess of personal need. Obviously, giving a homeless person your rent money so they can buy dinner would be a great gesture, but in the grand scheme of things, it is probably doing more harm than good. The same kind of thing happens if I am intent on altruistically sharing files at the same time as I am maxing my connection out. Not only do I slow myself down, but I end up making all the transfers slower... So I agree, obviously the ideal solution tries to minimize interference with optimal performance for the owner of the machine, for everyone's benefit.
Actually, this is also false. Capitalism is a vague term which is often abused. Personally, I think capitalism can save the world, right all wrongs, and do wonders for clearing up unsightly blemishes due to adult acne. The problems are not in the vague sense that capital is required to have a business, this is a basic rule of an industrial society-- that some sort of pooled resource (like a factory or a restaurant) is required to be used by multiple workers to produce goods or services more efficiently than those same individuals might do that work on their own, using only the resources they own personally.
Whether the shared resources belong to the state/society (socialism), to the community (communism), to no one in particular (anarchism), or to a group of owners (capitalism) is relatively uninteresting. The first three systems are fairly inclusive and basically everyone in the group is an owner. The fun part for those systems then gets to be about how to pick managers, since I think we'd all agree that if everybody in a factory wanted to do the same job, or if everyone in a restaurant wanted to wash dishes, that the shared resource would largely go wasted or be used inefficiently. So do we use consensus decision making at the community level? Do we have dictators who appoint managers? Do we hold elections for representatives who select managers as a group? In all, it becomes about this process which determines the nature of that society.
But with capitalism, the owners (literally shareholders) of the shared resource pick the managers. If you have a single shareholder (like a sole proprietorship) or a few select shareholders (like a family business), this management selection process is fairly skewed in favor of what those people want, and may or may not benefit workers. Also the rewards of the company's success go primarily to the owners, and the smaller that group is, the fewer people who benefit by default. However, there is nothing to prevent unions or other employee groups from demanding shares in companies as a condition of employment. Indeed, many of the larger companies now have efforts to make more employees shareholders. The only downside is that the number of shareholders in these companies makes that portion owned by the workers usually seem insignificant. But, again, there is nothing to prevent workers from accumulating capital in the business they work for. Indeed, if more workers did this, and then paid close attention to how they voted their shares, the nature of capitalism in the US would change dramatically. You would see the workers becoming the owners, and they would choose their managers, and they benefit from corporate success.
Re:Peer-to-Peer will never make it
on
Scour is Dead
·
· Score: 4
This is only "interesting" if you buy this particular brand of pessimism. I'm a completely different sort of pessimist. I believe that anything like Scour, Napster, or Usenet is largely doomed because the majority of the leeches and non-leeches are so dang stupid, that any content out there is likely to be 95% worthless because it is so banal. OTOH, altruism is not something about which we need to be concerned. Look at how many binaries are faithfully pumped into the Usenet world. Look at Free Software. Look at the United Way. Listen to those damn Salvation Army bells this holiday season. Even dark-hearted selfish louts like myself are glad to use up spare bandwidth (if we have any, that is) -- especially at times when our connection would otherwise be sitting idle or turned off-- to share files that may be of interest to others. So, human nature equals leech nature? I think not.
Frankly, I don't need the cops to keep me and my little family home with relative safety any night of the week. First of all, they can be out there taking bullets all they want. I seriously doubt that any police are going to get to my home in any amount of time even remotely resembling that amount of time needed to take a bullet that would otherwise be threatening me or my little family.
If I'm lucky, I'll be able to call 911 as I lie bleeding in the living room from the home invasion, angry neighbor with a rake, or stray bullet from a drive-by. The police may be able to track down the assailant after the fact-- but that will not make me safe.
These are the same police who, at least in my state, consistently support anti-gun initiatives that deprive me of any real right to defend myself. So, you know, thanks, but no thanks.
I currently sit at home with relative safety because the majority of my neighbors are busy watching TV, or mowing the lawn, or playing Milton Bradley brand board games on "Family Night"-- Americans (and most humans) are basically good people who generally leave other people alone, and prefer peaceful living to constant warfare. So spare me your fear-mongering slippery slope attempts to justify a heavily armed force patrolling my neighborhood, who are given the blind faith of the citizenry because they are supposedly there for "my own safety".
Um, this is not a criminal issue (at least not yet), so it's not like International Biological Masters, Inc. can have me jailed for using my genotype without paying a license fee. So if there were no lawyers, there would be no one to file patent infringement lawsuits, hence nothing from which I needed to defend myself. Besides, they can have my genes when they rip them from my cold, dead fingers. And frankly, I'd prefer the right to bear personal defense weapons to defend myself from real threats to my person, rather than some police state which runs a protection racket "legitimized" by an incessant bureaucracy of lawyers.
Not to be all contrary and picky, but the idea that stockholders of corporations care only about money is dangerous. Sadly, most American stockholders are greedy and couldn't possibly understand investing in corporations except for the purpose of making money (this has more to do with the real values of most Americans than it has to do with any inherent characteristic of capitalism). But it doesn't have to be this way. Shareholders are free to vote their shares for whatever goals or aims they have. It just so happens that most corporations and groups of shareholders are caught in this loop where the company sets its primary goal as making money for shareholders, and investors choose those companies because that is the primary goal. But these same people, in their daily lives, and these same companies, at tax time, freely give away large chunks of money to churches, the United Way, and numerous other charity organizations so that those organizations will do "good things". What they miss is the obvious opportunity for some of those "good things" to be done right at the company-- in this case, IBM appears to have caught on. The simple fact is that being environmentally responsible is often very profitable, because it takes to heart the old saying "a penny saved is a penny earned". There are entire mutual funds devoted to the issue of socially responsible or ecologically sound investing (so further shame should accrue to Mr. Nader for being so heavily invested in the Magellan fund, thereby owning shares indirectly in so many of the corporations he spent his campaign lambasting). Companies which take the concerns of the communities they serve to heart become companies which inspire customer loyalty. In this case, IBM is actually doing a good deed, and thereby reaping the reward of positive public opinion (and it doesn't hurt if they modeled this business in a way that has a solid revenue model). This is probably good for the bottom line. On the other hand, companies that make landmines, or sell infant formula to third world countries find themselves at the center of a very negative public debate, which even if it doesn't harm customer loyalty can only consume resources within the corporation to deal with the controversy. So, shareholders should demand more than just a decent return on investment-- they should demand that companies do the right thing. Which is often a win-win situation, since doing the right thing is often good business.
That license is the most insanely tortured piece of legalese I've seen in a long time. How is it useful to call something Open Source when, after reading the license, I have almost no clue what I'm allowed to do with the software? Is this not proof that Open Source is a phrase that is too vague to be useful, since so many seem to feel the need to write these kind of "Open Source" licenses that confuse the issue of user freedom to a point beyond which it becomes almost unrecognizable?
I don't know about MySQL, but from what I can tell psql for postgreSQL is fairly full featured in terms of wrapping SQL in functional language-- and comparing the minimal work I've done in GUI DB tools to the experiences I've had working in command line or Perl with pgsql, I'd take the non-gui process any day, it's much more direct, flexible, and doesn't suffer from the same tool-specific learning curve (i.e. solid Perl + solid SQL = extremely portable skill, whereas any of the listed commercial tools may or may not be portable-- this is important for both ramp-up time on new experiences/jobs/whatever, and for personal development or career building). As for the tools you mention, do any of these function via ODBC, and therefore have the capability to connect to any database with drivers? Not to say that you don't have a valid point, I'm just wondering if there isn't a good reason why the Free Software types haven't embraced GUI and ungeek-friendly tools...
While I might normally agree with your "he who is without sin gets to cast the first the stone" argument, I'd have to say that at my workplace Slashdot goes through a proxy/firewall and I'm forbidden by company policy to install unauthorized software on my desktop. Web pages in general would therefore be perhaps off-topic and constitute "theft of time" from my employer, but they would not be a security risk in any sense of the word. As far as IRC, depending on how that was conducted, it might or might not consitute installing unauthorized software. If you are installing mIRC against policy, that's no different than any other package... but if you are simply telnetting to a shell on a different machine, that probably didn't require the installation of new or unauthorized software (given the default inclusion of telnet in most desktop packages). If the CIA has a policy and these guys broke it, the commonplace nature of the violation does not make the violation less a violation. By the same argument, driving over the speed limit should exempt drivers from the speed limit as long as they are all doing it.
And, it appears that using the Preview button just mangulated that post, because the preview looked quite different from that post, which includes a quote from Perens' site on this page.
I am not aware of any serious differences, after reviewing Bruce's site. Here is a quote from :
"Most hackers know that Free Software and Open Source are just two words for
the same thing. Unfortunately, though, Open Source has de-emphasized the
importance of the freedoms involved in Free Software. It's time for us to
fix that. We must make it clear to the world that those freedoms are still
important, and that software such as Linux would not be around without them."
The happy world of acceptance needs to be predicated on the fact that if you want me to care and not just mindlessly tow the Microsoft product line, you need to explain to me (other than perhaps the lower price), what, if anything, is actually important about Open Source OR Free Software. Personally, I think using the phrase "Free Software" will accomplish this a lot faster, since the average user could give a rip about source code, but will understand the various benefits of freedom.
Even if it's not totally portable, it's still cool as heck. If it weren't for the obvious AOL lock-in strategy, I'd be all about auctioning off my laptop to help fund the purchase of one of these bad boys. I've been wanting touch screen action for quite a while. As it is, there is no way AOL is getting me to sign up for their service. They'd have trouble giving me a device this cool, just extract their $21.95 a month from me.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd suspect that this is a relic of test logs generated by running portscanners on a LAN to build up a record set for the database. They say the data is not very reliable yet.
Geez. Point out the obvious difficulties with trying to not feed people Frankenfoods and get ad hominem attacks. And no, I don't agree that extreme poverty is suddenly going to be great now that my daily bowl of rice has more nutrients.
Since the decision for whom to vote is truly binary (unlike most of life's decisions, for which we are usually offered only dichotomies, but closer inspection will prove that there are more than two choices)... I mean, voting is a matter of either you are voting for someone or you aren't. So why continue to blame the people who voted, rather than the mechanical issues of the voting system in Florida? IMHO Florida should be disqualified from voting in this election or future elections until they can be certified to have an election process that is not a circus. How's that for an unpopular argument?
While I don't doubt that a choice number of highly drool-worthy prototypes have been put together at great expense to assist in the wooing of venture capital and boosting the geek factor of the principals of this organization, I have to wonder when and if they plan to get even a remotely affordable and relatively available model of any Linux based PDA on the street, where it counts.
My biggest concern is that with all the beta-carotene in this rice and with the quantities of rice I eat, that I will turn orange.
I'm with you, for the most part, humans have been genetically altering livestock and crops for millenia, it's called selective breeding. And while we may not have had an in-depth understanding of genetics (and still probably don't), certainly any agricultural scientist (or farmer) paid close attention to these issues. The biggest problem we have now is that the kinds of changes are so completely artificial and the rate with which we can make those changes are so accelerated that the potential for serious unintended side effects may vastly outweigh the benefits.
In this case, instead of feeding these people the rice, perhaps they could extract the beta-carotene and administer it in the form of vitamin pills-- something we're all comfortable with at this point. That way the genetic oddities of the whole food are not in play. Of course, that's not efficient if the food is safe, so who am I to say. Wouldn't it be easier to just grow carrots? I mean, rice? How bland can you get?
This, honestly, is a load of shit. A hosting service (which is a subset of ISPs) certainly can set limits to the sort of content they will host, especially if they are up-front about what is allowed and what is not. There is nothing illegal or even improper about a service setting up terms such to conform with any particular notion, especially if their own domain name is an intricate part of the URL. For instance, why should www.christianhosting.net, not have a right to prevent posting of pro-Satanic material on their servers? Or why wouldn't most "unlimited" bandwidth hosts or free hosts have a right to limit certain types of content, especially mp3s and pornography? These are very likely to interfere with their ability to manage bandwidth, thus providing that service.
Personally, I think the ease with which one can register a fairly unique domain name and find a cheap (i.e. $10/month) host for content makes this a buyer's market. And certainly there are hosts out there who will provide limited bandwidth hosting for any type of content you'd like to post which is not outright illegal. I know because I use one. If you do not shop the TOS prior to making a deal with a hosting service, this is an obvious case of "caveat emptor"-- since we've all been hearing about this issue since the dawn of the home page.
For the record, I distinctly recall the use of the word "elite" (or any 3l337 spelling of same) IN the year 1986, so I'd assume that those using it were actually born at that time. Of course, at this point "cracking" primarily meant removing the copy protection from games.
I was going to moderate on this story, but there's no moderation tag for "-1, Obviously Stupid", so I'll have to respond. Last time I checked, farming was one of the few remaining commodity markets in existence, which practically gaurantees that farmers are at the mercy of the few large corporations who buy the bulk of their products, and with the ongoing consolidations in the agriculturally-derived manufacturing industries (look at RJR Nabisco, look at Pillsbury being merged with General Mills), expect this to get worse.
It simple economics, the fewer buyers there are, and as long as sellers are mostly dependent on those buyers, the buyers will be able to set their price about as low as they want to. Where I live in Minnesota, this is a continuous issue-- where families that have farmed for generations are now having to find other means to make money since farming is becoming increasingly unprofitable at the smaller, family-sized farm level. In fact, there is a large movement, especially among the devotees of organic produce, to support locally-owned, family-style, non-corporate farms in a very direct way (through co-ops and such).
In other words, this analogy is flawed, I hear about farmers being ripped off a lot more than I hear about rock stars being ripped off. I also hear about farmers consistently losing ground through no fault of their own. Given the ease of capitalizing a CD pressing and the incredible number of outlets for same, I can't say I have the same sympathy for musicians too dumb not to whore themselves to RIAA member corps.
I, too, have noticed very few sites that don't work with either Linux or Mac OS. Most of the sites I can think of that don't or won't or might not work are those put out by television networks, who apparently assume that everything on the web should be as much like an interactive commercial as possible. Frankly, most of it is crap that does more to obscure any actual content than it makes the site enjoyable. A few well-placed jpeg's would have the same impact, and when properly coded won't impair me from using a text- browser when I want to ensure a low bandwidth experience.
I'm not sure I see where and how the article explains that MS itself will do any sort of certification. All it says is that they are building an option to prevent execution of unsigned code. The biggest problem I can see is MS requiring that certificates (which are different from certification) be purchased from them. Even if the certificates come from a 3rd party like Verisign, this is still additional expense for shareware developers. And if it relies on patented or non-Free algorithms to be applied, then it starts to take Free software out of the picture. However, simply having the option to not execute unsigned binaries is hardly a terrible thing. Security paranoid sysadmins should like this, since it means that all binaries come from a "trusted" source. How easily the ability to trojan a binary that appears trusted remains to be seen. But this option doesn't really sound like much more than the current (hihgly manual) option in Linux to download signed source code, use checksums, then compile, so that the odds of a trojaned binary are pretty much reduced to an impossibility.
Or hey, if you are talking on a cell phone and pointing at your computer, then all it takes is one Philadelphia police officer's word to have you convicted, right?
I sure as hell hope they could do this under Linux, and I suspect that they can. I recall distinctly having to turn the automatic hardware change detection feature in Red Hat to "off" so that it would stop carping when I removed the keyboard and tried to reboot (I was testing system and network regeneration in case of power outage).
Finally, the only problem with Linux distributions that make it difficult for newbies is not all the underlying Unixosity. It's the fact that most distros offer you choices like KDE or GNOME. It's the fact that they've never encountered an OS that was originally intended for multiple users connecting via terminals to a single large machine-- and the distro does nothing to cover up this situation by using single user mode as the default. It's the fact that none of these applications are likely the ones their friends have or they use at work. It's not a Linux problem per se, it's the fact that no one has made the difficult choice to dumb down the distributions.
Also, replying to the moderation on your own post is lame. Really lame. Especially even more lame since your original post was written in such a way as to provoke argument, i.e. the clinical definition of "flamebait".
I think it is typical of human nature to be willing to share that which is in excess of personal need. Obviously, giving a homeless person your rent money so they can buy dinner would be a great gesture, but in the grand scheme of things, it is probably doing more harm than good. The same kind of thing happens if I am intent on altruistically sharing files at the same time as I am maxing my connection out. Not only do I slow myself down, but I end up making all the transfers slower... So I agree, obviously the ideal solution tries to minimize interference with optimal performance for the owner of the machine, for everyone's benefit.
Actually, this is also false. Capitalism is a vague term which is often abused. Personally, I think capitalism can save the world, right all wrongs, and do wonders for clearing up unsightly blemishes due to adult acne. The problems are not in the vague sense that capital is required to have a business, this is a basic rule of an industrial society-- that some sort of pooled resource (like a factory or a restaurant) is required to be used by multiple workers to produce goods or services more efficiently than those same individuals might do that work on their own, using only the resources they own personally.
Whether the shared resources belong to the state/society (socialism), to the community (communism), to no one in particular (anarchism), or to a group of owners (capitalism) is relatively uninteresting. The first three systems are fairly inclusive and basically everyone in the group is an owner. The fun part for those systems then gets to be about how to pick managers, since I think we'd all agree that if everybody in a factory wanted to do the same job, or if everyone in a restaurant wanted to wash dishes, that the shared resource would largely go wasted or be used inefficiently. So do we use consensus decision making at the community level? Do we have dictators who appoint managers? Do we hold elections for representatives who select managers as a group? In all, it becomes about this process which determines the nature of that society.
But with capitalism, the owners (literally shareholders) of the shared resource pick the managers. If you have a single shareholder (like a sole proprietorship) or a few select shareholders (like a family business), this management selection process is fairly skewed in favor of what those people want, and may or may not benefit workers. Also the rewards of the company's success go primarily to the owners, and the smaller that group is, the fewer people who benefit by default. However, there is nothing to prevent unions or other employee groups from demanding shares in companies as a condition of employment. Indeed, many of the larger companies now have efforts to make more employees shareholders. The only downside is that the number of shareholders in these companies makes that portion owned by the workers usually seem insignificant. But, again, there is nothing to prevent workers from accumulating capital in the business they work for. Indeed, if more workers did this, and then paid close attention to how they voted their shares, the nature of capitalism in the US would change dramatically. You would see the workers becoming the owners, and they would choose their managers, and they benefit from corporate success.
This is only "interesting" if you buy this particular brand of pessimism. I'm a completely different sort of pessimist. I believe that anything like Scour, Napster, or Usenet is largely doomed because the majority of the leeches and non-leeches are so dang stupid, that any content out there is likely to be 95% worthless because it is so banal. OTOH, altruism is not something about which we need to be concerned. Look at how many binaries are faithfully pumped into the Usenet world. Look at Free Software. Look at the United Way. Listen to those damn Salvation Army bells this holiday season. Even dark-hearted selfish louts like myself are glad to use up spare bandwidth (if we have any, that is) -- especially at times when our connection would otherwise be sitting idle or turned off-- to share files that may be of interest to others. So, human nature equals leech nature? I think not.
Frankly, I don't need the cops to keep me and my little family home with relative safety any night of the week. First of all, they can be out there taking bullets all they want. I seriously doubt that any police are going to get to my home in any amount of time even remotely resembling that amount of time needed to take a bullet that would otherwise be threatening me or my little family.
If I'm lucky, I'll be able to call 911 as I lie bleeding in the living room from the home invasion, angry neighbor with a rake, or stray bullet from a drive-by. The police may be able to track down the assailant after the fact-- but that will not make me safe.
These are the same police who, at least in my state, consistently support anti-gun initiatives that deprive me of any real right to defend myself. So, you know, thanks, but no thanks.
I currently sit at home with relative safety because the majority of my neighbors are busy watching TV, or mowing the lawn, or playing Milton Bradley brand board games on "Family Night"-- Americans (and most humans) are basically good people who generally leave other people alone, and prefer peaceful living to constant warfare. So spare me your fear-mongering slippery slope attempts to justify a heavily armed force patrolling my neighborhood, who are given the blind faith of the citizenry because they are supposedly there for "my own safety".
Um, this is not a criminal issue (at least not yet), so it's not like International Biological Masters, Inc. can have me jailed for using my genotype without paying a license fee. So if there were no lawyers, there would be no one to file patent infringement lawsuits, hence nothing from which I needed to defend myself. Besides, they can have my genes when they rip them from my cold, dead fingers. And frankly, I'd prefer the right to bear personal defense weapons to defend myself from real threats to my person, rather than some police state which runs a protection racket "legitimized" by an incessant bureaucracy of lawyers.
Not to be all contrary and picky, but the idea that stockholders of corporations care only about money is dangerous. Sadly, most American stockholders are greedy and couldn't possibly understand investing in corporations except for the purpose of making money (this has more to do with the real values of most Americans than it has to do with any inherent characteristic of capitalism). But it doesn't have to be this way. Shareholders are free to vote their shares for whatever goals or aims they have. It just so happens that most corporations and groups of shareholders are caught in this loop where the company sets its primary goal as making money for shareholders, and investors choose those companies because that is the primary goal. But these same people, in their daily lives, and these same companies, at tax time, freely give away large chunks of money to churches, the United Way, and numerous other charity organizations so that those organizations will do "good things". What they miss is the obvious opportunity for some of those "good things" to be done right at the company-- in this case, IBM appears to have caught on. The simple fact is that being environmentally responsible is often very profitable, because it takes to heart the old saying "a penny saved is a penny earned". There are entire mutual funds devoted to the issue of socially responsible or ecologically sound investing (so further shame should accrue to Mr. Nader for being so heavily invested in the Magellan fund, thereby owning shares indirectly in so many of the corporations he spent his campaign lambasting). Companies which take the concerns of the communities they serve to heart become companies which inspire customer loyalty. In this case, IBM is actually doing a good deed, and thereby reaping the reward of positive public opinion (and it doesn't hurt if they modeled this business in a way that has a solid revenue model). This is probably good for the bottom line. On the other hand, companies that make landmines, or sell infant formula to third world countries find themselves at the center of a very negative public debate, which even if it doesn't harm customer loyalty can only consume resources within the corporation to deal with the controversy. So, shareholders should demand more than just a decent return on investment-- they should demand that companies do the right thing. Which is often a win-win situation, since doing the right thing is often good business.
That license is the most insanely tortured piece of legalese I've seen in a long time. How is it useful to call something Open Source when, after reading the license, I have almost no clue what I'm allowed to do with the software? Is this not proof that Open Source is a phrase that is too vague to be useful, since so many seem to feel the need to write these kind of "Open Source" licenses that confuse the issue of user freedom to a point beyond which it becomes almost unrecognizable?
I don't know about MySQL, but from what I can tell psql for postgreSQL is fairly full featured in terms of wrapping SQL in functional language-- and comparing the minimal work I've done in GUI DB tools to the experiences I've had working in command line or Perl with pgsql, I'd take the non-gui process any day, it's much more direct, flexible, and doesn't suffer from the same tool-specific learning curve (i.e. solid Perl + solid SQL = extremely portable skill, whereas any of the listed commercial tools may or may not be portable-- this is important for both ramp-up time on new experiences/jobs/whatever, and for personal development or career building). As for the tools you mention, do any of these function via ODBC, and therefore have the capability to connect to any database with drivers? Not to say that you don't have a valid point, I'm just wondering if there isn't a good reason why the Free Software types haven't embraced GUI and ungeek-friendly tools...
While I might normally agree with your "he who is without sin gets to cast the first the stone" argument, I'd have to say that at my workplace Slashdot goes through a proxy/firewall and I'm forbidden by company policy to install unauthorized software on my desktop. Web pages in general would therefore be perhaps off-topic and constitute "theft of time" from my employer, but they would not be a security risk in any sense of the word. As far as IRC, depending on how that was conducted, it might or might not consitute installing unauthorized software. If you are installing mIRC against policy, that's no different than any other package... but if you are simply telnetting to a shell on a different machine, that probably didn't require the installation of new or unauthorized software (given the default inclusion of telnet in most desktop packages). If the CIA has a policy and these guys broke it, the commonplace nature of the violation does not make the violation less a violation. By the same argument, driving over the speed limit should exempt drivers from the speed limit as long as they are all doing it.
And, it appears that using the Preview button just mangulated that post, because the preview looked quite different from that post, which includes a quote from Perens' site on this page.
The happy world of acceptance needs to be predicated on the fact that if you want me to care and not just mindlessly tow the Microsoft product line, you need to explain to me (other than perhaps the lower price), what, if anything, is actually important about Open Source OR Free Software. Personally, I think using the phrase "Free Software" will accomplish this a lot faster, since the average user could give a rip about source code, but will understand the various benefits of freedom.
Even if it's not totally portable, it's still cool as heck. If it weren't for the obvious AOL lock-in strategy, I'd be all about auctioning off my laptop to help fund the purchase of one of these bad boys. I've been wanting touch screen action for quite a while. As it is, there is no way AOL is getting me to sign up for their service. They'd have trouble giving me a device this cool, just extract their $21.95 a month from me.